‘A Different World’: Why Jasmine Guy Killed a Whitley/Dwayne Spin-off in the ’90s
The NBC comedy A Different World was already a spinoff of The Cosby Show. When it ended in 1993, there was a chance for yet another spinoff. Producer Debbie Allen wanted to create another show centered around A Different World characters Whitley (Jasmine Guy) and Dwayne (Kadeem Hardison), but it was Guy who wanted to move on.
Allen and Guy were part of a Television Critics Association panel in 2007 when A Different World joined the Nick at Night lineup. They explained why the Whtiley spinoff never happened.
Dwayne and Whitley’s marriage on ‘A Different World’ could have inspired a whole other show
Dwayne and Whitley were love interests throughout their time at Hillman College in A Different World. They actually got married near the end of the show, so Allen thought a family sitcom with them would work.
“Actually we had an offer to do a spinoff with Dwayne and Whitley as the married couple, but I think they were not inclined,” Allen said. “I think Jasmine didn’t really want to go another year with Whitley Gilbert. You know, it happens. You learn in this business how difficult it is to hit and keep going and keep going, so there was a spinoff that was in the makings, but it was really a choice, I think, of the actors wanting to go to something different.”
Jasmine Guy might have done ‘A Different World’ spinoff if this had changed
Guy spoke for her own inclinations to move on from Whitley Gilbert. However, they were motivated by NBC’s lack of support. Had the network been more flexible, Guy might’ve stayed.
“Artistically, I did have problems with maybe playing Whitley for another seven years,” Guy said. “But I feel that if we had been supported as a show and as actors and as multifaceted actors, we wouldn’t have had to have given up A Different World to do the things we wanted to do. But they didn’t let us out for movies. I mean, we were very popular actors at that time. People wanted to work with us and the synergy that could be created with us doing our other projects, Cree [Summer] sings, Dawnn [Lewis] sings. We had so much to give, and it was very hard, and it was a lot of struggle, and that’s part of what I saw for the next six, seven years of my life. It wasn’t what they did with the Friends cast, okay?”
The show ended unceremoniously
Despite lasting six years on its own, Allen felt NBC let A Different World fizzle out. By the end, it didn’t seem like they were all that interested in continuing.
“When we went off the air, what happened was that last year they just kept changing our time slot,” Allen said. “We were Thursday night and then we changed. Then we were Saturday. It got to where people didn’t know where we were and then by the time we went off, we didn’t have the big celebration like Cheers. We didn’t have the big celebration like some of the shows.”
